Carbon Women In Crisis Is Short On Money For Battered Families * Agency Hoped To Open A Shelter. With Funding Cuts, Basic Services Are Threatened.

July 03, 1996|by KRISTEN KLICK, The Morning Call

If Women in Crisis of Carbon County can't raise enough money to balance this year's budget, it will be in a real financial crisis.

Federal funding cuts have forced the agency into a deficit, and the agency has cut services as much as it can, Executive Director Dorothy Kuntz said yesterday.

Women in Crisis had hoped to open a shelter for battered families this year. Instead, it has had to lay off its education specialist for the summer, possibly longer, and has doubled the amount of work the four remaining employees do, Kuntz said.

If it can't replace more than $25,000 with donations, it will have to limit the help it provides to more than 875 battered women and their children each year.

It's a predicament facing social service agencies all over the state, Kuntz said.

Women in Crisis found out at the end of the fiscal year that it would receive 15 percent less than it had expected in 1995-96, Kuntz said.

Women in Crisis is funded by the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which are in turn funded by the state Department of Public Welfare. The state gets its money from the federal government.

When the U.S. Congress threatened to cut funding to social services -- a threat it eventually made good on -- the state froze its accounts to the two groups.

Women in Crisis works on a reimbursement schedule, meaning it receives the money from both groups after it is spent. Accounts were frozen in February, meaning Women in Crisis technically had no money to operate for the past four months, Kuntz said.

"We are operating in a deficit," she said. "Our credit limit has reached the top."

Much of the frustration lies in the fact that the state incessantly increases demands on the agency, requires mountains of tedious paperwork, yet continues to slice funding.

Fortunately, Women in Crisis received on Monday a check to cover March and April expenses.

"It's still not enough to keep us going. Even though the money is coming in, it will not be what we had planned," Kuntz said. Women in Crisis ended the fiscal year in the red.

The 1995-96 budget called for $120,665 in spending. Of that, $50,000 was to pay its five employees: A counselor, executive director, legal advocate/secretary/receptionist, educator and program coordinator. Only the counselor and director work full time.

Kuntz said she is not sure the checks from the state will cover the money already spent.

She is certain state funding will not cover the agency's big plans for the coming year.

Women in Crisis had applied for $146,000 for 1996-97, to make all positions full time, hire another, build a shelter and open a safe house where battered wives can hide.

"We're not going to get it," Kuntz said. They will probably not get as much as they got last year.

"There's nothing I can cut back anymore," Kuntz said. "You try to tell a person, `Sorry I can't help.'"

Already the four employees are working staggered schedules to make sure the 24-hour hotline is covered, and they are filling in where they can.

Kuntz said their only answer is to mount a massive fund-raising campaign.

They will park cars for concerts at Phifer's Dam in Franklin Township, and will have a festival in Palmerton Borough Park with live bands on July 27. They've had bake sales and plan car washes.

Ann Christman, legal advocate/secretary/receptionist, said working under emergency conditions is difficult, but worth it.

"I'm definitely going to stick it out," Christman said. "You don't want to leave because the people really need you to be here.

"I love my job and it's very rewarding. Like when I go to court and the client gets a PFA (protection-from-abuse order), and they know, for a whole year, they won't have to look over their shoulder all the time and worry when's the next time they'll get beat up," Christman said.